 Will all Lightning nodes end up running through TOR or equivalent routing to avoid legal persecution under money laundering laws, as we have seen for coin mixing service operators. And will being identified as someone who transacts in Lightning or with such nodes also become illegal. Will people choose to pay every last dime? Will people who choose to pay every last dime of tax therefore not be able to use Lightning network in the future? A lot of speculative questions there, which I don't know if I can answer definitively, but I can give you my own speculation and opinion as to how I think these things are going to play out. Now, first of all, we've heard this argument before. It's an argument that has been politically driven by some quarters. The idea that Lightning nodes are basically systems that are routing payments or money transmission systems. But if you understand how the Lightning network works, they're not actually routing payments. What you're doing is you're updating simply the balances of your channels with the people you're connected to. And so there are some subtle nuances there. In fact, many of the arguments can be brought for Lightning network operation can be bought for any blockchain node operation because when you are forwarding transactions from other parties, an argument could be made that you're transmitting money. Of course, in none of these systems is money actually transmitted. What is being exchanged is digital signatures and keys that update the central ledger or decentralized ledger, which is not actually transmitted. All of the Bitcoin is always in the same place and that place is everywhere. So it's a really difficult clash between a system that introduces real innovation and disruption and breaks a lot of the models that the laws have used to define what is and isn't banking. What is and isn't money servicing? What is and isn't money transmission? And of course, what isn't money laundering? But in the case of the Lightning network, that's a real stretch to claim that this would be deemed illegal. And of course, as I've said many, many times, when someone says, is this illegal, the first question you should ask is where illegal where will it be illegal in North Korea? Probably haircuts are illegal in North Korea. Will it be illegal in Saudi Arabia? Will it be illegal in Venezuela? Will it be illegal in anyone? The autocratic and totalitarian regimes around the world probably may be who who the hell knows. And if it is made illegal in those places, is it therefore immoral to continue to use these technologies? Or in fact, if a dictator is making something illegal, is it in fact a moral responsibility to continue to use these technologies because that's the only way that people can be free of dictators? Again, these are moral questions. You answer those the way you want to answer them. In the big picture, however, I think it is extremely unlikely that we're going to see these issues really in developed democracies. Ones that have robust financial and legal systems because these things will be endlessly litigated in the court. Now, you make your own decisions based on your own jurisdiction. And I, of course, am not a lawyer. So I can't tell you how any of this will play out. But I can tell you that a lot of this kind of fear mongering that happens happens for a reason. It happens because people are objecting to the very capability that is offered by technologies like the Lightning Network or because they want to pursue a different technology for scaling or a different technology for blockchain sizing and is motivated primarily from that and not any real legal analysis or expertise. If you enjoyed this video, please subscribe, like and share. All my work is shared for free. So if you want to support it, join me on Patreon.